THE COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY 



/■£/ 



NOTES ON ITS RELATIONS 



TO THE 



CITY OF WASHINGTON 



CONSIDERED AS THE SEAT 



OF 

A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY 



BY 



JAMES C. WELLING, 



PRESIDENT OF THE COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. 



WASHINGTON : 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 

1889. 



i 



D)?06 



THE COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY : 



NOTES ON ITS RELATIONS 



CITY OF WASHINGTON 



CONSIDERED AS THE SEAT 



OF 

A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY 



\&*#&y 



JAMES C. WELLING, 

PRESIDENT OF THE COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. 



WASHINGTON : 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
1889. 






P. 
Xt B.Geol Survey 

2tF'03 



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PREFATORY NOTE. 



It is proper to state that the earlier part of this pamphlet, down 
to the middle of p. 15, was originally published as a communica- 
tion to " The Examiner," of New York City. The additions sub- 
sequently made proceed in the way of minuter specification and 
detail as to certain elements and conditions of the university 
problem in Washington. If, in consequence of this piecemeal 
method of composition, the paper should lack, in point of literary 
form, " the series and juncture " which Horace praises, it is hoped 
that the critical reader will view such blemishes of style with in- 
dulgence. 



The Columbian University, 

Washington, June 20, 1889. 



\ 



A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY. 



In the year 1821 an act of incorporation was procured from the 
Congress of the United States erecting in the city of Washington 
"a college for the sole and exclusive purpose of educating youth 
in the English, learned, and foreign languages, the liberal arts, 
sciences, and literatures," the style and title of which was to be 
"The Columbian College in the District of Columbia." The 
charter was procured at the instance of representative members 
of the Baptist denomination of Christians, who, while seeking a 
liberal charter at the hands of Congress, were themselves careful 
to premise against the intrusion of religious tests in the manage- 
ment of the institution committed to their care. Tl>e seventh sec- 
tion of the charter reads as follows : "And be it further enacted, 
That all persons of every religious denomination shall be capable 
of being elected trustees ; nor shall any person, either as presi- 
dent, professor, tutor, or pupil, be refused admittance into said 
college, or denied any of the privileges, immunities, or advantages 
thereof, for or on account of his sentiments in matters of religion." 

Accordingly, from its foundation down to the present day, men 
of different religious denominations have participated in its gov- 
ernment and in its work of instruction. 

The founders of the college projected it on a large scale, de- 
signing it to be directly ancillary to the church and to missions, 
but meaning also that it should be national in its influence and 
comprehensive in the scope and scheme of its teachings. They 
hoped and believed that in reaching the height of its opportunities 
and calling it would become as broad as civilization in the liberal 
range of its disciplines and of its systems of culture. Hence the 
early provision which these pious founders made for other pro- 
fessional training than that given in the college and in the theo- 



6 

logical school, with the creation of which they began their work. 
In publications made at the time, copies of which lie before me 
as I write, the} T distinctly proposed to realize the aspirations of 
"Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, for the erection of a great 

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY AT THE SEAT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. It 

was in this sense that President Monroe gave to the Columbian 
College his public support as President of the United States. At 
a later day, when an hour of need overtook the college, John 
Quincy Adams became one of its saving benefactors. 

WHAT THE UNIVERSITY NOW IS. 

In 1873 the Columbian College, already an embryo university 
in the practical range and compass of its studies and teachings, 
received a formal university charter at the hands of Congress. It 
has to-day its college, its medical school, its school of dentistry, 
its school of law, and its school of science —comprising collectively 
in these several departments a larger number of pupils than can 
be found in any other institution in Washington. And all this 
university work is done on the basis of a small and inadequate 
endowment of less than $250,000. Our buildings, newly con- 
structed and situated in the most eligible part of Washington 
(within a stone's throw of the presidential mansion), are worth 
half a million of dollars. 

The reason why the Columbian University has been able to 
achieve such large results, on a capital so small, is not far to seek. 
It is to be found in the felicity of its situation, and in the intel- 
lectual character of its social environment. Washington is to-day 
a great educational centre, not simply because it is a great politi- 
cal centre, and not simply because it has become since the civil 
war a brilliant social centre, but because it has become the great 
scientific centre of the whole country, and is the favorite meeting- 
place of learned societies, many of which gather in Washington 
from all quarters of the land for an annual exchange of discussions 
and ideas. When Professor John Tyndall was delivering in Wash- 
ington, some years ago, his course of popular lectures on light, he 
remarked to me that he knew of no city in Europe which could 
gather a congregation of scientific workers and original investi- 
gators so large as that which he then met in " The Philosophical 
Society " of Washington, under the presidency of Joseph Henry. 



This society, the oldest of its kind in Washington, is only one of 
the scientific bodies which surround that parent organization at 
the present time. For here we have the Anthropological Society, 
the Biological Society, the Chemical Society, the Botanical Society, 
the Mathematical Section of the Philosophical Society, the National 
Geographic Society, etc., etc. — together comprising a body of 
600 learned men connected with the different departments of 
scientific work conducted under the patronage of the National 
Government. It is because this work is conducted under the 
auspices of the Government that these departments must have 
their central seats and their foremost workers in the city of Wash- 
ington. These foremost workers are connected, according to their 
respective specialties, with the Smithsonian Institution, the Na- 
tional Museum, the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Eth- 
nology, the Patent Office, the Army Medical Museum, the Naval 
Museun) of Hygiene, the Weather Bureau, the Coast Survey, 
the Bureau of Hydrography, the National Observatory, the 
Agricultural Department, the Botanical Garden, the Department 
of Education, etc., etc. The National Academy of Sciences 
holds its annual meetings here. The American Historical Asso- 
ciation holds its annual meetings here and deposits its collections 
in the Smithsonian Institution. The Congress which adjourned 
on the 4th of March last has just made provision for the estab- 
lishment of a Zoological Garden under the direction of the Smith- 
sonian Institution — so that the living study of zoology will now 
be brought to our doors. 

A GREAT EDUCATIONAL PLANT. 

It remains to say that all these great centres of scientific study 
and activity are surmounted, sustained, and replenished by the 
best and largest collection of books in the whole country. This 
collection consists not only of the library of Congress, the largest 
single collection in the land, but is also supplemented by important 
special libraries connected with each of the great departments of 
the general Government, and with each of the several bureaus 
among which the scientific work of the Government is here dis- 
tributed. Every branch of human knowledge has a literary de- 
posit in Washington. For instance, under the head of science 
alone, the Smithsonian Institution has a deposit reckoned by more 



than 250,000 titles in the alcoves of the library of Congress. In 
law the same library comprises an invaluable collection of more 
than 50,000 volumes, covering the jurisprudence of the civilized 
world. We thus have in the city of Washington more than 
a million of volumes, selected by experts in the several de- 
partments of knowledge, and so housed and administered in 
close juxtaposition that they are easily accessible to students, 
whether for reference, for comparative research, or for careful 
reading ; and all this without money and without price on the 
part of the university or its pupils. How large a saving of 
university funds may be effected under this head in Washington 
can be inferred when I recall the fact that the Congress of the 
United States has just made an appropriation of $6,000,000 for 
the proper preservation of the literary treasures of the Govern- 
ment in a National Library Building to be erected almost under 
the eaves of the National Capitol. That library will be to all in- 
tents and purposes an adjunct of the Columbian University in the 
conduct of its educational operations — so soon as the university 
shall have endowments, under which to appoint the professors 
and lecturers who can be teachers and guides in the wise use of 
these accumulated treasures in law, science, history, politics, pub- 
lic economy, literature, and theology. 

In the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the most richly endowed insti- 
tution of its kind in the country (it has a free endowment of $1,- 
000,000), provision is also made among us for the study of the 
fine arts. Free instruction in drawing and painting is given in 
the art school of this gallery, while a class of select pupils, in 
both of these disciplines, is already working with pencil and paint 
brush in the rooms of the Columbian University. 

To show how all these appliances may be made directly tributary 
to university studies with a vast saving of expense on the score 
of university administration, let me take one or two illustrative 
examples — say, the National Museum, and the Chemical Bureaus 
of Washington. 

The National Museum has twenty-two distinct scientific depart- 
ments under its jurisdiction : The departments of comparative 
anatomy, of mammals, of birds, of reptiles, of fishes, of mollusks, 
of insects, of marine invertebrates, of plants, of fossil vertebrates ; 
of paleozoic fossil invertebrates, of mesozoic fossil invertebrates, 



of cenozoic fossil invertebrates, of fossil plants, of geology and 
petrology, of mineralogy, of metallurgy and mining, of prehistoric 
archaeology, of ethnology, of oriental antiquities, of American abo- 
riginal pottery, of arts and industries, comprising under these 
last-named heads numismatics, graphic arts, foods, textiles, fish- 
eries, historical relics, materia medica, naval architecture, history 
of transportation, etc., etc., etc. 

Each of these departments is placed under a curator, and is 
provided with the necessary appliances for original research ; and 
these appliances are yearly increasing in completeness and effi- 
ciency. In addition to these special appliances each curator has 
his laboratory with its necessary apparatus, his working library, 
and his study- series of specimens for use in original investigation. 
In connection with his sectional library each curator has access to 
the central library of the museum, now containing over 20,000 
volumes, as also to the library of Congress. These scientific lab- 
oratories are always open to students and investigators who come 
either to observe methods of work or to pursue researches of 
their own with the aid of these appliances. It should be added, 
as bearing directly on the problem of university education, that 
each of these departmental libraries and laboratories is of the 
kind which a university would require if it has a specialist of its 
own engaged in a minute subdivision of science corresponding to 
that of the museum. Some of these laboratories, notably those 
of zoology, geology, and botany, have a fuller outfit than those of 
any American university, while others of these laboratories have 
no analogues at all in the best equipped of our educational insti- 
tutions. Professor Otis T. Mason, Ph.D., so honorably known to 
the scientific world as one of the learned curators of the National 
Museum, can authenticate all that I have said concerning the 
possible relations which this great scientific workshop is actually 
bearing, and can be made to bear, to the cause of university edu- 
cation. 

THE SEVEN CHEMICAL CENTRES. 

Let us now turn to consider, for a moment, the opportunities 
which Washington offers for the study of chemical science — that 
science which to-day is transforming in so many aspects the pri- 
vate and the public economy of the world. There are at least 
seven centres of chemical activity conducted under the auspices 



10 

of the Government at the National Capital. First, there is the 
chemical laboratory of the United States Geological Survey, in 
which six chemists and two physicists are employed. Analyses 
are here made of rocks, minerals, ores, clays, etc., etc., collected 
from all parts of the country by the field parties of the survey, act- 
ing under the conduct of the Hon. John W. Powell, the learned 
director of the survey, who is, I may add, one of the trustees of 
the Columbian University. Researches pertinent to chemical ge- 
ology are also pursued in this laboratory, with a view to the exten- 
sion of abstract science. Secondly, there is the laboratory of the 
Department of Agriculture, in which from six to eight chemists are 
engaged upon problems relative to soils, fertilizers, the manufac- 
ture of sugar, the chemistry of food products, the detection of 
adulterants, etc., etc. The chemical work is done here in a broadly 
scientific spirit, by able men armed with an excellent equipment. 
Thirdly, the surgeon-general of the army maintains a laboratory in 
which drugs are analyzed previous to their purchase. Fourthly, 
the Museum of Hygiene, under the control of the surge on -general 
of the navy, conducts investigations in prophylaxis, disinfectants, 
bacteriology, etc. A fifth laboratory is connected with the Bureau 
of the Mint, for obvious reasons, and one of the chemical experts 
of this bureau is the demonstrator of practical chemistry in the 
medical school of the Columbian University. The sixth laboratory 
is under the direction of the Internal Revenue Bureau for reasons 
connected with the national excise system of taxation, while the 
seventh of these great governmental laboratories is connected with 
the United States Patent Office. Patents are annually issued in 
large numbers bearing on chemical industries, and it is under the 
United States examiners in chemistry that the practical scientific 
activity and inventive industry of the country (where it bears on 
chemistry) are brought to a focus in the Patent Office. For some 
of these facts and figures I am indebted to Professor F. W. Clarke, 
the learned chemical chief of the United States Geological Survey, 
who, having been some time a university teacher, is deeply inter- 
ested in the cause I am here advocating. 

HOW AVAILABLE TO THE UNIVERSITY. 

But, it may be said, what relation has all this affluence of scien- 
tific apparatus to the special behoof of a great university in Wash- 



11 

ington ? I answer, much every way. A very large part of the sum 
required for the establishment of a university at Cambridge, at 
New Haven, and at Princeton, must needs be expended for what 
is technically called "the educational plant" — buildings, books, 
costly apparatus, specimens, collections in zoology, botany, archae- 
ology, etc., etc. And then large sums must be annually expended 
for the preservation and administration of these buildings and of 
these illustrative materials. The necessary expenditures of this 
kind are reduced to a minimum at Washington, for here the choicest 
materials of education already exist under the custody of the Gov- 
ernment, and are offered ready made to the hands of the university 
which is able to wield them in its service. Nor is this all. In 
connection with these scientific departments may be found very 
many of the foremost men of science in our country, and (in cer- 
tain specialties) in the whole world. I need but call the names of 
Newcomb, of Major Powell, of Asaph Hall, of Langley, of G. Brown 
Goode, of Dr. John S. Billings, and of many others to set this fact 
in a clear light. Scientific experts in the Government service are . 
already connected with the Columbian University — men of highest 
science, like Godding, Mason, Gill, Gore, Abbe, Winlock, Knowlton, 
Prentiss, Yeates, Fletcher, Gray, and others. 

It is because of the felicity of our position at this seat of Ameri- 
can law and justice that the Columbian University is able to enlist, 
in the service of its law school, the most eminent teachers — Judges 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, assistant attorneys - 
general, judges of the Supreme Court of the District, and illus- 
trious jurisconsults like Dr. Francis Wharton, the late Solicitor 
of the Department of State, whose recent death the university 
is called to mourn in common with the friends of religion and 
jurisprudence throughout the land. It is because of our close 
proximity to the Army Medical Museum that we can profit by 
its peerless library and pathological collections, as well as by its 
learned collaborators, like Dr. Gray, the demonstrator of normal 
histology in the medical school of our university. The whole 
theory of medicine can here be taught with the richest and 
widest illustrative material, and with the largest collection of medi- 
cal books in the country. And these distinguished teachers in 
jurisprudence, in medicine, and in science, can afford to give their 
services to a Washington university at a rate of compensation which 



12 

is reckoned by hundreds of dollars, where elsewhere it would be 
reckoned by thousands, because they draw the main part of their 
livelihood from their salaries as Government officers. 

ECONOMY OF UNIVEKSITY ADMINISTEATION. 

It is in this way that one dollar will accomplish in Washington, 
for educational purposes, the work of many dollars applied to simi- 
lar objects at university seats which lack the advantages above 
specified. " The educational plant " here offered for the highest 
ends of the highest university could not be commanded elsewhere 
without an outlay ranging, according to the judgment of wisest 
men, from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars. In some depart- 
ments, the educational materials of Washington could not be com- 
manded by money at all. And hence it is that, as the least pos- 
sible expenditure is here required for the indispensable tools and 
appliances of university education, the largest possible sum can be 
directly utilized in the employment of professors, teachers, and 
lecturers in every branch of learning, and the largest possible sum 
can be applied to the encouragement of worthy pupils by the es- 
tablishment of scholarships, fellowships, etc. 

With such a vantage ground already occupied by the Columbian 
University, and in some small measure already bearing fruit, it is 
easy to see the greater things it might achieve if only its endow- 
ments were made in some degree commensurate with its educa- 
tional opportunities and the nationality of its position. The at- 
tention of Dr. Andrew D. W r hite, sometime president of Cornell 
University, was arrested and fascinated by the spectacle of these 
vast educational opportunities on the occasion of his visit to Wash- 
ington in the winter of 1887-88, when he delivered at the Colum- 
bian University his interesting course of lectures on the French 
Revolution. The profound impression made on his mind may be 
seen in the three articles which he has since contributed to The 
Forum on " University Education in Washington," and especially 
in the article to be found in the February number of that periodical. 
President White has rather understated than over-estimated the ad- 
vantages which excite his enthusiasm. After recapitulating some of 
these advantages, he says : " I fully believe that such a university 
(a great university, amply endowed) would be one of the most use- 
ful and flourishing in the world, and that it might fairly expect 



13 

finally to equal in the numbers and character of its students, as 
well as in the attainments and reputations of its faculty, the 
University of Berlin — the highest point which any university 
organization has yet reached." 

One or two or three millions of dollars would suffice to confirm 
the Columbian University in the undisputed possession of the 
educational opportunities which it is now powerless to utilize, and 
which will assuredly slip from its grasp if it shall fail to enter 
in and possess the kingdom here prepared for it in the realm of 
university learning. 

THE MISSION OF SUCH A UNIVEESITY. 

Such a university as I here prefigure would come in no rivalry 
with any existing institution under the control of any denomina- 
tion. It would aim to be the crown and culmination of our 
State institutions, borrowing graduates from them and repaying 
its debt by contributing to them in turn the inspiration of high 
educational standards, and helping also in its measure to train the 
experts in theology, law, medicine, science, philosophy, and letters, 
who should elsewhere strive to keep alive the traditions of a pro- 
gressive scholarship under the auspices of Christianity. It is not 
enough that our colleges should perpetuate and transmit the ex- 
isting sum of human knowledge. We must also have our workers 
on the boundaries of a progressive knowledge, if we are to estab- 
lish our hold on the directive forces of modern society. We must 
have our men who can work effectively for the increase of learning, 
because they stand in this living age of ours on the summit of the 
world's actual achievements in every branch of human thought and 
inquiry. 

If there be any who are tempted to say that the Protestant Chris- 
tians of the United States have no need for such a seat of highest 
learning, either for their own sake or for the sake of Christian civil- 
ization and culture in our land, I cannot here attempt a formal 
argument against that thesis. No such argument should be nec- 
essary in the face of facts full of admonition to the Christian scholar. 
The learning of our times runs more and more into specialties of 
knowledge. It is the necessary incident of an expanding civiliza- 
tion, which calls for division of labor in scientific pursuits as well 
as in domestic and public economy. But this differentiation in 



14 

the methods and ends of science has its contingent evils and perils 
if left without its corrective compensation in university studies ; 
in that universitas stucliorum which reveals the essential unity of 
all true knowledge, and which gives to the very name of a univer- 
sity its true historical as well as its true etymological significance. 
Men of light and leading among us, because they have been trained 
in diverse specialties and in diverse cultures, without keeping in 
touch and sympathy with their fellow students in other fields, are 
actually growing alien in the temper of their minds as they look 
across the provinces of knowledge in which they have never been 
naturalized. The very dialects of men exclusively wedded, on the 
one hand, to methods of physical research, and, on the other, to 
the methods of moral and spiritual inquiry, are in danger of grow- 
ing mutually unintelligible — just as we read that children of the 
Jews who had married wives in Ashdod were wont to speak " half 
in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews 1 lan- 
guage." The sciences of the world might be made to understand 
each other in the fellowship of a great university. It is in this 
supreme view that I have sought to submit some facts and con- 
siderations which, as I conceive, deserve to be carefully pondered 
in the wise and deliberate study of the educational problems which 
are now pending before thoughtful minds. 

A CRISIS AT HAND. 

The Columbian University has reached a critical stage in its his- 
tory. It stands to-day as in the Valley of Decision, and its friends, 
as they forecast its possible destiny, are sometimes moved to whis- 
per over it the fateful words, aut cita mors, aut victoria Iceta — 
either a speedy death or a joyous victory is impending. The sud- 
den establishment by its side of a full-fledged and overshadowing 
university, like that founded by Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, would 
be a swift and stunning blow to all its high aspirations, and to all 
the high aspirations of its sainted founders. The great Catholic 
university has not yet fully come to challenge our name and place 
in Washington, but that coming event is already casting its shadow 
before it. If our university can be strengthened by timely and by 
gradual endowments it may still go on, conquering and to con- 
quer, through the great door and effectual which is opened wide 
before it. It calls to-day even for that timely succor which shall 



15 

strengthen the things that remain, lest peradventure it may be 
dislodged from the coigne of vantage to which it has been already 
raised. In the last twenty years it has leaned for its strongest 
support on the arm of its most liberal benefactor, the late William 
W. Corcoran, and now that he is no longer here to consult for its 
interests, we can but turn in quest of friends who shall be like- 
minded with that great philanthropist. He gave liberally to the 
Columbian University because he took an interest in its fortunes, 
and because he had a faith in its future. If I should write that a 
wealthy citizen of Washington was willing to contribute $15,000,- 
000 to the endowment of the Columbian University, provided 
the friends of learning would contribute $1,000,000 to the same 
object, the announcement would send a thrill through the whole 
country. But what difference should it make if the $15,000,000 
are offered by the Government of the United States, and are 
offered without proviso % 

The exposition above given, with regard to the educational facili- 
ties offered by the National Museum and by the Chemical Bureaus 
of Washington, might, as I have hinted, be extended with like de- 
tail to other departments of scientific work here conducted by the 
Government. But such an exposition would confuse the reader by 
its prolixity. Suffice it to say, that the Government of the United 
States makes an annual appropriation of nearly three millions of 
dollars for the support of scientific work which, in its several 
departments, has its headquarters in Washington. This is not a 
rough guess, but an estimate which has been accurately derived 
from the "Digest of Appropriations" made by the Treasury De- 
partment for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889. A university 
founded here might immediately profit by the fruits of this vast 
expenditure. 

THE LOCAL CONSTITUENCY OF A WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. 

But in studying the intellectual resources of Washington in con- 
nection with the possibilities of a great university, it is not enough 
to consider " the educational plant " here provided, and the emi- 
nent masters of science here congregated, but we must also con- 
sider the special constituency from which such a university might 
hope to draw its patrons and pupils. On this point I beg leave 



16 

to submit the following suggestions of Prof. Otis T. Mason. He 
says : 

" In the first place, such an institution would draw students 
from all parts of the land, and instead of impoverishing the State 
institutions would only stimulate them. 

" Secondly, an increased local patronage might be expected from 
Maryland and Virginia, but this increment would be small so far 
as it is determined by geographical considerations alone. 

"Thirdly, and pre-eminently, all who have written about this 
subject seem to have entirely overlooked a principal source of 
supply in the immediate vicinage of such a university. I refer to 
the Government employes. There are not far from ten thousand 
clerks in our Washington civil list, two thousand of whom, it may 
be estimated, are anxious for university instruction of some kind ; 
but let us say one thousand. Already, in the Columbian, George- 
town, Howard, and other law and medical schools of Washington, 
we find five hundred persons earning a living by working for the 
Government, and at the same time pursuing professional studies. 
The National Museum, the Geological Survey, the Patent Office, 
etc., etc., are thronged with young men — some of them graduated 
from our State colleges — who would be glad to pursue university 
studies. 

" I have given much thought to this subject, and there is scarcely 
a month in which I am not importuned for special instruction which 
now cannot be had short of Baltimore, in the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity." 

A university, I may add, does not measure its local constituency 
by the mere number of people dwelling in the town where it stands, 
but also by the intellectual character of the residents. It is a com- 
mon saying that " Washington has the intellectual population of a 
million inhabitants," and the grounds of the saying are found in 
the nature and proportion of the peculiar work done here in the 
service of the Government — work requiring intelligence and probity 
under severe conditions of official scrutiny and responsibility. 

THE PRESENT FRONT OF OUR UNIVERSITY PROBLEM. 

Let us proceed to bring these general considerations into a more 
definite and precise relation to the present condition and prospects 
of the Columbian University. 

The Columbian University comprises, in its system, a prepara- 
tory school with (for the current year) 80 pupils, a college with 40 
students, a school of science with 96 students, a school of medi- 



17 

cine with 122 students, a school of dentistry with 14 students, and 
a school of law with 202 students, giving, in all departments, an 
aggregate number of 554 students. 

It is no part of the plan which I have proposed that the uni- 
versity should dispense with any of its present schools, but that it 
should add to their number, and add higher and mdre varied 
ranges of study to each of its several schools. It is no part of the 
plan that the Columbian University should, at the present stage 
of its operations, aim to become an institution for the sole and 
simple purpose of concerting and administering graduate studies 
in any given direction, but it is proposed that, in connection with 
each of its schools as already existing, or as destined hereafter 
to exist, the university should aim to concert and administer 
graduate courses of advauced study to the extent of its means, 
and to the full measure of the extraordinary facilities and oppor- 
tunities offered by the city of Washington. 

THE NEW EXTENSIONS KEQUIEED. 

The University has reached a stage in its growth and develop- 
ment where it seems to call for three things : First, for a strength- 
ening of all its undergraduate courses of study and of its ex- 
isting professional schools ; Secondly, for additions to its courses 
of professional study, and Thirdly, for structural changes reach- 
ing through its whole organism, in virtue of which advanced and 
graduate courses of study shall be provided, so far as practica- 
ble, in every department of knowledge embraced in the scheme 
and scope of the University's teachings. 

In connection with our college we ought to have learned men 
who shall not be exclusively occupied with the recitation drill of 
the class-room, and who shall have leisure for the prosecution of 
original research in language and science. " We have not fully 
learned," says President Patton, of Princeton College, " the differ- 
ence between a professor and a pedagogue, and that while the one 
may hear lessons the other should inspire with the thirst for 
knowledge and speak with authority. But we are coming to this 
position. We are finding that the professor who has ceased to 
learn is unable to teach." 

In connection with our School of Science we ought to have at 
the end of each professional curriculum at least one or two edu- 



18 

cators endowed with the spirit of original investigation, and keep- 
ing abreast with the progress of discovery in some high specialty. 
The presence of one such teacher is an inspiration — an inspiration 
alike to the teachers and pupils who come in contact with him. 

In our Medical School we ought to be able to place ourselves in 
more intimate relations with the Army Medical Museum and the 
Navy Bureau of Hygiene by calling to our aid the eminent medi- 
cal scholars and experts connected with these two departments. 
Some of these scholars and experts not only stand at the head of 
the medical profession in point of learning, but are actively con- 
ducting original researches for the advancement of medical science. 
Professor John Tyndall, of London, has expressed the opinion that 
it is in the science of medicine that the greatest discoveries are 
to be made in the near future for the alleviation of disease and the 
promotion of human well-being. The art of medicine depends 
for its efficacy on the science of medicine, and in no part of the 
country are the facilities and means for the increase of medical 
science so abundantly supplied as in Washington. Moreover, at 
the Government Hospital for the Insane, in Washington, with its 
patients numbering more than a thousand (the number was 1361 at 
the date of the last annual report), important work in the patho- 
logical study of insanity and its physical conditions is conducted 
on lines of original investigation by a trained expert, who preserves 
and publishes the results of his microscopic analyses in the form 
of photographic records and descriptive annotation. Dr. W. W. 
Godding, the accomplished Superintendent of the Government 
Hospital for the Insane, is already a lecturer in the Medical School 
of the University, and the President of the University has been 
for many years one of the Visitors appointed by the President of 
the United States to supervise the operations of this institution, 
and is thus in a position to become intimately acquainted with the 
opportunities it offers for the higher medical education. 

In our School of Law the undergraduate course of two years is 
alread}^ supplemented with a graduate course of one year, called 
the " Course in Practice," in which the student is trained to the 
art of practically applying the principles of law to the actual pro- 
ceedings of courts of justice in the United States. The Colum- 
bian University was the first to establish such a graduate course 
in connection with its Law School, hut similar courses have since 



19 

been created in other leading schools. The next step in the order 
of development in our Law School is that we should have a grad- 
uate course of legal and scientific studies culminating in the his- 
tory and philosophy of universal jurisprudence. Such a course, 
even if attended by only a few pupils, would strike a quickening 
influence through all the studies of the courses lying below it. The 
University of Leyden is perhaps best known to-day as having been 
the nursing mother of Grotius, the founder of international law, 
though it was also the home of Descartes, Scaliger, Boerhaave, and 
of our own John Quincy Adams. The lectures of Savigny marked 
an epoch in the history of German jurisprudence, as the lectures 
of Sir Henry Sumner Maine at Oxford have unsealed the foun- 
tains of a new and broader exegesis for the scientific interpretation 
of English and American law at the present day. The science of 
the world thrives more and more on the comparative study of like 
phenomena. Indeed, so fruitful is the comparative method of re- 
search in its application to the phenomena of society that Freeman, 
the English historian, has not scrupled to say that this method 
stands second only to the Revival of Learning in the impetus it has 
given to all intellectual progress. It is by this method that an- 
alogical reasoning, with its possible errors resulting from mistaken 
appearances, is converted into homological reasoning, with its 
demonstrative proofs drawn from the deeper relations of things. 
The student of law who has saturated his mind with knowledge 
drawn from the institutes of primitive civilization ; who knows 
the stages by which the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian 
codes paved the way for the compilations of Justinian ; who 
knows the place which the Capitularies of Charlemagne hold in the 
evolution of European jurisprudence, and who, by a comparative 
study of the Roman civil law and of the English common law, can 
trace the grounds of the jurisprudence common to both, would en- 
ter upon the practice of his profession with a knowledge of its 
principles rooted in history and philosophy. Prof. Henry E. 
Davis, LL.M., the accomplished Lecturer on the History of English 
and American Law in our Law School, is already pushing inquiry 
beyond the boundaries of Sir Henry Maine, as knowledge grows 
concerning the customary law of primeval man, and at the same 
time he keeps his chair abreast with those original and profound 
investigations by which Scrutton and Maitland, in England, are 



20 

giving new significance to Bracton, and to the fountains of English 
Law in general. In all this we are but returning to a well-known 
maxim of Lord Coke — melius est petere fontes quam seetari 
rivulos. 

The Columbian University will never reach the height of its 
mission until it shall comprise in its university system a School of 
Politics and of Public Economy. For such a school its situation 
in the National Capital is pre-eminently favorable. Steps have 
been taken again and again in this direction, but no progress has 
yet been made for the want of an adequate endowment on which 
to found the school. Eminent statesmen and eminent scholars in 
political economy have pledged their cooperation in connection with 
such a school. An outline sketch of the studies to be pursued in 
it was submitted by the President of the University to the author- 
ities of the institution in the year 1881. That outline sketch then 
ran as follows : 

" School of Political Science, 

with a course of studies running through at least two years, to be 
mainly conducted by lectures, and embracing in the 

" First Year — Physical and Political Geography ; the Political 
and the Constitutional History of European States ; the History 
and Institutes of the Roman Civil Law ; Land Tenures ; Taxation ; 
Finance, and general Public Economy. 

" Second Year — Political and Constitutional History of the 
United States ; History of American Diplomacy ; Principles of 
Public International Law ; Rules of Private International Law ; 
Science of Statistics ; Sociology ; Philosophy of History." 

With the extension given to such studies at the present day 
under an advancing civilization, and with the increasing complexity 
of the social and economical problems resulting from every for- 
ward movement in the world-process, it might no longer be possi- 
ble to comprise such a scheme of studies within the limits of two 
years. It is important to note the signs of the age in which we 
live. Institutions of learning must perpetually readjust their 
schemes of culture in order to meet the existing conditions and 
the future wants of a progressive civilization. The number and 
quality and arrangement of studies in a university course are not 
arbitrarily fixed by educators, but are the natural outgrowth of 
man's intellectual tendencies in the past, and should be the highest 



21 

expression of his intellectual wants and aspirations in the present, 
while comprising in their studium generate such an order and 
variety of studies as shall afford the conditions and presage of an 
intellectual advance in the proximate future. It is thus that the 
curricula of our universities are constantly growing in number 
and expanding in volume. The evolution of these curricula fol- 
lows a logical order because it follows a chronological order in the 
drift of the ages. 

SPECIAL NEED OP ECONOMIC STUDIES. 

It is because I believe that the next great problems of our social 
and political order are to be fought out on the field of economics 
that I advocate the establishment of a School of Politics and of 
Public Economy in connection with the Columbian University. In 
support of this prognostication, I need but point to the political 
agitations of the present hour. The " burning questions " of the 
day in all civilized States are pre-eminently economic and societary. 
These questions need to be discussed in the light of history, science, 
philosophy, and Christianity, that they may be settled on the sure 
foundations of truth and righteousness. " Wisdom and knowledge 
shall be the stability of thy times." And where can the wisdom 
and knowledge required for the right solution of these great prob- 
lems in applied economics be more intelligently sifted or more ef- 
fectually promulged than in the lecture halls of a great university 
at the seat of the National Government ? 

The learning of the world at the present day has ceased to be 
cloistral, and walks abroad in the market-place, that the discov- 
eries of science may " come home to men's business and bosoms." 
It is a fine phrase of Thucydides, that " discussion is the teacher 
of measures," and the scientific discussions of a university, if con- 
ducted by men of foremost intelligence with academic serenity, 
can never be brought too near to the legislative halls of our 
Congress. 

"The city of Washington," says Dr. Andrew D. White, "is 
rapidly becoming a great metropolis. It is developing the atmos- 
phere which is to give character to the executive, the judicial, and 
especially the legislative business of the nation. Shall it be. . . . 
an atmosphere of thought upon the highest subjects, of work in 
the most worthy fields, of devotion to the noblest aims *? Such an 



22 

atmosphere a great university, with the men and work involved in 
it, would tend to develop, and in it demagogism would wither, and 
corruption lose the main element of its support. We may well 
suppose that some considerations of this kind passed through the 
mind of him whose great name our capital bears, and that these 
were among the thoughts which prompted him to urge, again and 
again, the founding there of a university worthy of the nation." 

And there are members of Congress who could reach a better 
audience from the lecturer's chair of a great university than even 
from their seats in the Senate or House of Representatives. Who 
remembers to-day the speeches of Blackstone in the British Par- 
liament, but what time will ever stale the Commentaries on the Laws 
of England which he first delivered as Yinerian Professor of Law 
at Oxford ?* It is not too much to say that the lectures of Guizot 
at the Sorbonne, on the history of the civilization of Europe and 
of France, are worth all the speeches he ever delivered at the 
French tribune. 

It does not need to be said that the advanced course of studies 
in the history and philosophy of jurisprudence, as above sketched, 
might be made part and parcel of the School of Political Science. 
It would be easy so to arrange the times and the courses of such 
lectures as to bring them into coordination with professional pur- 
suits bifurcating in the direction of law or in the direction of eco- 
nomic studies according to the election of students. In the Uni- 
versity of Michigan the variety of elective courses comprised even 
in its undergraduate department is made broad enough and flexible 
enough to provide for a special course looking in the direction of 
political and social studies. 

It also does not need to be said that the presence in our Law 
School of two hundred students affords a good augury for the es- 

* It is important to note that the literary necessities of university exposition 
compel to lucidity and order — the prime conditions of scientific treatment and 
philosophical demonstration. Lord Yelverton, the famous Irish barrister, re- 
ferring to Blackstone, has said : " He it was who first gave to the law the air 
of science. He found it a skeleton, and he clothed it with life, color, and 
complexion ; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew into youth 
and health and beauty." 

The excellence of Blackstone's Commentaries, as also of Kent's Commen- 
taries on American law, is not accidental, but, next to the learning of these 
great jurists, is due to the academic form in which their commentations were 
originally delivered for the instruction of university students. 



23 

tablishment of graduate studies in jurisprudence and political sci- 
ence. When to this we add the large number of persons already 
referred to as being connected with the civil service of the Gov- 
ernment in Washington, men of intelligence who naturally wish 
to escape from the drudgery of routine clerical work in the several 
executive departments, it will be seen, let me repeat, that a uni- 
versity in Washington has a large local public from which to re- 
cruit its students, and has, besides, that broader public which 
might be attracted from all parts of the land by the prestige of 
its position as well as by the variety and the dignity of its gradu- 
ate and professional studies. 

CROWNING STUDIES IN LETTERS, LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION. 

While the city of Washington, for reasons already given, offers 
unrivalled facilities for the cultivation of the physical sciences, I 
do not propose that the Columbian University shall be exclusively 
addicted to studies which move in number, matter, space and 
motion. I wish to see it the seat also of highest studies in hu- 
manities, in linguistics, in pedagogics, in philosophy and in the- 
ology. In the humanities, because the high literature of the 
world is the artistic expression of the best minds of the human 
race in all ages, and, as such, needs to be preserved in our uni- 
versity cultures " on purpose to a life beyond life," as Milton 
phrases it. In linguistics, because the scientific study of human 
speech in Egyptology, in the cuneiform records, in the Shemitic 
dialects, in the classical tongues of Greece and Rome, and in 
modern tongues of all kinds, is placing in our hands the keys of 
sound biblical criticism as well as the essential propaedeutic to 
polemical divinity and philological science. In pedagogics, because 
we already have in the Department of Education in Washington 
(with its collection of books, nearly 20,000 in number, devoted to 
the history, science and art of education), a vast repository from 
which to draw useful materials for lecture- courses on that art of 
teaching which, more than printing, is really " the art preservative 
of all arts." In philosophy, because it is not enough that the 
studies of a university should aim at professional dexterity ; they 
should aim to lay the foundations of the broadest and deepest 
culture even in the case of those who particularly devote them- 
selves to some specialized study or profession. 

And, finally, I wish that provision may be made for high theo- 
logical studies under the auspices of the Columbian University. 



24: 

So long as Crozer Theological Seminary, with its munificent en- 
dowment, shall wish to pursue its independent course at Chester, 
in Pennsylvania, it would be a great superfluity, and, therefore, a 
great impertinence, for the Columbian University to essay the es- 
tablishment of a school for the professional training of Christian 
ministers in rivalry with it. But there is a sense (and the highest 
of all senses, too), in which theological studies may be said to be 
the very crown and culmination of the studies most germane to the 
freedom and autonomy of a university. To the Christian scholar 
who believes, with St. Paul, that ""all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge are hid in Christ," it is impossible that any true wis- 
dom or any real knowledge should be common or unclean. It 
seems to me that Dr. Ashbel Green, a former President of Prince- 
ton College, has correctly defined the attitude of a Christian uni- 
versity towards theological and non- theological studies. He said : 
" The design of its foundation would be perverted if religion 
should ever be cultivated in it to the neglect of science, or science 
to the neglect of religion — if, on the one hand, it should be 
converted into a religious house like a monastery, or a theological 
seminary in which religious instruction should claim almost exclu- 
sively the attention of every pupil ; or, upon the other hand, should 
become an establishment in which science should be taught, how 
perfectly soever, without connecting with it and constantly en- 
deavoring to inculcate the principles and practice of piety." 

The Columbian University already has its free lecture courses in 
history, art, science, and philosophy. I hope to see the day when 
for the special benefit of its hundreds of students in letters, 
science, law, jurisprudence, medicine, politics, and theology, it 
shall have its Sunday afternoon lecture courses administered by a 
college of Christian ministers, who, without encroaching at all upon 
the legitimate functions of the pulpit and of the church, shall be 
able to lay the ripest fruits of learning on the altar of Christianity. 
If there be any truth in the saying that " the sciences are sociable," 
no wall of partition can ever arise in a Christian university between 
the secular sciences, so called, and that scientia scientiarum which 
is taught in the name of Christian theology. But such a connec- 
tion between spiritual and secular truth within the precincts of a 
university must be intrinsic and vital — not extrinsic and mechan- 
ical. It is only in this way that the unity of the spirit can be 
kept in the bonds of peace, and that university freedom can be 



25 

conciliated with the voluntariness of Christian liberty. On this 
point I heartily applaud the words of President Patton, of Prince- 
ton: " True piety is fostered not so much by a frequent repetition 
of religious formulas as by a robust avowal of our Christian faith 
and a manly vindication of it as a reasonable thing. We do not 
mean to extinguish the torch of science that we may sit in relig- 
ious moonlight, nor do we intend to send our religion up to the 
biological laboratory for examination and approval." 

FACTS IN CONNECTION WITH FIGURES. 

Bringing the foregoing suggestions to the focus of a more pre- 
cise definition, I may say that — 

The Columbian College (the collegiate department of the Uni- 
versity) needs an additional endowment of at least $200,000 for 
the establishment of new professorships and lectureships in the 
modern languages, in the physical sciences, and in political science. 

The Corcoran Scientific School, except in the department of 
chemistry, is almost totally destitute of the necessary appliances 
for class-room instruction in science. Five years ago the Trustees 
of the University issued an urgent appeal for $60,000, to be ex- 
pended under this head. The professors in this school are now 
giving their services without any stipend save that which results 
from an equitable division among them of the tuition fees. A free 
endowment of $200,000 would yield an income of $10,000, and 
this income if applied to the purposes of this school would give 
to it a very respectable efficienc}% it being premised that the ex- 
pense of conducting such a school in Washington is greatly less 
than in other cities not so favorably situated in the matter of em- 
inent teachers and illustrative materials. 

The Medical School depends in like manner upon the annual re- 
ceipts derived from tuition fees, and is practically supported by 
the munificence of its learned faculty, who give their services to 
the University at a rate of compensation widely at variance with 
the divine rule that " the laborer is worthy of his hire.'' An annual 
income from $200,000 would only partially repair these deficits of 
salary, while still leaving something for the extension of medical lec- 
ture-courses and the improvement of the Dental School. 

Our Law School, as at present established, has no endowment 
whatsoever. It depends entirely upon the receipts from tuition 
fees for the salaries of its professors and for the means of defray- 
ing the expenses incident to its administration. The annual income 



26 

from an endowment of $100,000 would give new supports to the 
school, and would pave the way for the establishment of the 
fourth-year's course in universal jurisprudence. 

To found the School of Politics and of Public Economy a free 
endowment of $300,000, with an annual income of $15,000, would 
suffice. This school ought to have at least two permanent pro- 
fessors of the first rank in point of learning and distinction. The 
services of such men could not be secured at a rate of compen- 
sation less than $5,000 per annum for the salary of each. The 
residue of the annual income should be applied in the employ- 
ment of resident and extraordinary lecturers — for whom Washing- 
ton offers an inviting field. 

HIGH GRADUATE COURSES. 

For the establishment of high graduate courses of study in 
connnection with each department of the University there is no 
limit to the endowment that could be wisely and effectively used 
in Washington. The annual income from ten thousand dollars 
would not be too little to give some impulse to the University 
in this right direction, and the annual income from several mil- 
lions of dollars would not be too much to exhaust the possibilities 
of Washington as an educational centre. Working with reference 
to the proximate future, the authorities of the University could 
perhaps best use the income from a single million in providing the 
additions and structural changes above indicated — the structural 
changes looking in the direction of highest studies. 

With all my respect for the power of money to found a great uni- 
versity "at a single jet," I incline to believe that, on the whole, it is 
better that a university should grow than that it should be made. 

As has been already implied, a university exults in the presence 
of eminent professors who have so honorably and conspicuously 
identified their names with some specialty of learning or science as 
to make that specialty their peculiar province in the eyes of the 
world. Men like Professor S. P. Langley, the learned Secretary of 
the Smithsonian Institution, in Astronomical Physics ; like Prof. G. 
Brown Goode and Dr. Theodore W. Gill in Biology ; like Major 
John W. Powell in Geology and Ethnology ; like Dr. John S. Bil- 
lings in Medical Hygiene and its associated studies ; like Prof. 
Newcomb and Prof. Asaph Hall in Astronomy ; like Prof. F. W. 
Clarke in chemistry ; like Prof. Cleveland Abbe in Meteorology ; 
like Prof. Lester F. Ward in Botany ; like Prof. Charles V. Riley 



27 

in Entomology — men like these, all of them residents in Washing- 
ton, stand at the heads of their respective specialties, and are ac- 
knowledged leaders and authorities among their scientific brethren. 
As such they would speak with especial emphasis in the Lecturer's 
chair of a great university, and it is there that they would often 
best find their fit audience, for it is there that they would transmit 
their learning from living minds to living minds even more effec- 
tively than from the printed page, which is often late in coming 
to the desk of the teacher who is not also an original inquirer. 

And as it is not proposed that the physical sciences shall exer- 
cise supreme or exclusive dominion in the Columbian University 
of the future, eminent lecturers from all parts of the land — from 
all parts of the world — should be summoned, as opportunity 
offers, to publish here the results of their researches in Compara- 
tive Philology, in Egyptology, in Assyriology, in the new Psy- 
chology, in the History of Philosophy, in the Philosophy of His- 
tory, &c, &c, &c. 

I give no estimate as to the endowment which could be profit- 
ably used for the sustentation of such high and inspiring lecture 
courses in a great university, because no more limits can be set to 
such schemes of expanding culture than to the growth of culture 
itself. I simply point to the fact that where such schemes of 
culture are the most varied and the highest — as in the University 
of Berlin — there we have the largest number of pupils assembled 
to keep alive the tradition of learning. 

And we ought to have endowments for the purpose of establish- 
ing Scholarships, Fellowships, and Aid Funds like the " Greenleaf 
Aid Fund " of Harvard University.* 

The urgent needs of the University as thus summarised on the 
lowest possible scale of additional endowment may be recapitu- 
lated as follows : 

The College proper $200,000 00 

The Corcoran Scientific School 60,000 00| 

The Corcoran Scientific School 200,000 00 

The Medical School . ■ 200,000 00 

The Law School 100,000 00 

The School of Politics and Economy 300,000 00 

Fellowships, Scholarships, &c .• • • 200,000 00 

♦Under the head of this fund alone Harvard University dispenses $12,000 
annually for the benefit of worthy undergraduate students, 
f To be expended at once for apparatus. 



APPENDIX. 



ILLUSTKATIVE NOTES. 

I append the following notes in illustration of some of the 
points discussed in the foregoing paper. 

" The idea of University education in the arts and sciences is as old as the 
schools of Greek philosophy. The idea was perpetuated at Alexandria, Rome, 
and Athens under the emperors. It endured at Constantinople and Ravenna. 
It was revived at Bologna, Paris, Prague, Heidelberg, Oxford, Cambridge, 
under various auspices, whether of city, church, or State : and was sustained 
by the munificence of merchants, princes, prelates, kings, and queens. Ideas 
of the higher education were transmitted to a new world by Englishmen who 
believed in an educated ministry and who could not suffer learning to perish 
in the wilderness." — Professor Herbert B. Adams, Ph. D., Professor of His- 
tory in Johns Hopkins University. 

"To be concerned in the establishment and development of a university 
is one of the noblest and most important tasks ever imposed on a community 
or on a set of men. It is an undertaking which calls for the exercise of the 
utmost care, for combination, co-operation, liberality, inquiry, patience, 
reticence, exertion, and never-ceasing watchfulness. It involves perplexities, 
delays, risks. Mistakes cannot possibly be avoided ; heavy responsibility is 
never absent. But history and experience light up the problem ; hope and 
faith give animation to the builders when they are weary and depressed." — 
President Daniel C. Oilman, of Johns Hopkins University. 

" Ever since Europe emerged from the darkness of the middle ages, Uni- 
versities have been among the most potent of all agencies for the advance- 
ment and promulgation of learning. Their domain, the republic of letters, 
has been wider than the boundaries of any state ; their citizens have not been 
restricted to any one vocabulary ; their acquisitions have been hid in no 
crypt. They have gathered from all fields and distributed to all men. 
Themes the most recondite, facts the most hidden, relations the most com- 
plex have been sought out and studied, that if possible the laws which govern 
the world might be discovered, and man made better." — President Gilman. 

" I hold that w r e may retain all our colleges that impart real knowledge and 
culture. But there may be, there should also be, universities. Every think- 
ing man knows and feels that this country has now reached a stage at which 
it should look toward confirming, enlarging, and improving the universities 
already existing, and rearing a few new ones, it may be, on a better model. 



29 

.... The grand aim of a university should be to promote all kinds of 
high learning in literature and science, in the liberal arts and in philosophy. 

In particular it should encourage and carry on original research A 

limited number of universities, well endowed and set up in favorable lo- 
calities, would indefinitely extend the range of American scholarship and 
original investigation." — The Rev. James McCosh, D. D., LL. D. 

" Why is it that universities are so highly esteemed ? What are the advan- 
tages which follow their foundation ? Remembering that a university is the 
best organization for the liberal education of individuals, and the best organ- 
ization for the advancement of science, apply the double test, what is done 
for personal instruction, and what is done for the promotion of knowledge, 
and you will be able to judge any institution which assumes this name." — 
President Gilman. 

" I know that the man who understands the history of jurisprudence, who 
knows something about the Pandects, or has looked into Gaius and Ulpian, 
the mau who has read Austin and Amos, and Holland and Maine, and Pollock 
and Lorimer, to say nothing of Savigny and Stahl, will go to the study of 
Coke and Blackstone, Story and Greenleaf , Washburn and Parsons, a broader 

man, and that he will be a better jurist if not a better advocate. And 

it is of no little advantage to the clergyman to read the jural language of St. 
Paul in the light of Roman law, to learn that the testamentary idea originated 
in the Roman mind, to see what the jus civile has done for Christianity, to 
learn how law in great measure gave form to theological literature, and how 
in the mellow light of cathedral windows the marriage of jurisprudence and 
theology was effected.— President Francis L. Patton, D. D., LL. D., of 
Princteon College. 

" The three notes of a university (as cited by Prof. Laurie) are studium ge- 
nerale, Freedom and Autonomy." — President Patton. 

" Let me protest against the common method of estimating intellectual work 
by numerical standards alone. I have heard it said that some men are pos- 
sessed by a statistical devil. They can think only in figures ; they will ask, 
in respect to a new acquaintance, how much is he worth ; of a library, how 
many volumes ; of an orchestra, how many pieces ; of a college, how many 
students. I have known the expenses of an institution made a dividend, and 
the number of scholars the divisor, the quotient representing the cost of each 
pupil. All this is wrong, absolutely and wholly wrong. If such a standard 
were allowable, the largest number of scholars taught by the cheapest teacher 
would be the greatest success. It is not the number but the quality of stu- 
dents which determines the character of a high school. It is important to 
count ; it is better to weigh." — President Gilman. 

" It is manifest that as our life grows more complex, new questions will 

arise In the interests of national integrity, it is important that they 

shall be dealt with in our colleges, and that our graduates, who, whatever 
their calling may be, will have the influence as citizens that is accorded to 
learning, should have a training that will enable them to deal with these 
problems by taking hold of the philosophical principles that underlie them. 



30 

I hope that Social Science at no distant day will have an able representative 
in our Faculty. " — President Patton. 

''I must not pass from the subject without a word upon the study of 
language in general, that faculty of the human race which was never half 
understood until the universities of Germany entered upon the study of com- 
parative philology, by the introduction of Sanscrit study. "With this new 
torch they have thrown a flood of light upon the nature of speech, the history 
of our race, the brotherhood of nations and the development of ideas which 
lie at the basis of all Indo-European civilization. 

The Shemitic tongues have long been subjects of university study, espec- 
ially Hebrew and Arabic — the former so much esteemed as the language of 
the Old Testament that it used to be spoken of as the language of Paradise, 
and the latter being regarded as a key to the ideas and religion, the ancient 
literature and science, of one of the largest families of men. Of late years the 
domain of Shemitic study has been widened : libraries long hidden have been 
exhumed on the sites of ancient Babylon and Nineveh : records, the very exist- 
ence of which was unknown at the beginning of this century, written in char- 
acters to which there was then but the slightest clew, are now read and printed 
and studied as a part of the history of mankind. Assyrian becomes a language of 
university study — not, indeed, for many scholars, but for a few. and the bearing 
of their discoveries is so important upon the language and history of the 
Hebrews that one of the most learned of English theologians has recently 
said that, in respect to certain of the obscurer passages of the Old Testa- 
ment, the world must wait for the light which would come from Assyriology." 
— President Gilrnan. 

" It by no means is to be taken for granted, in a country like ours, that 
every college is to teach the same studies and to the same extent. It would 
be far better that each should consult the wants of its own locality, and do 
that best for which it possessed the greatest facilities." — President Wayland. 
of Brown University , icriting in the year 1850. 

" The University is the bright consummate flower of democracy." — Senator 
George F. Hoar. 

" Washington is the one place on this continent where in time all the 
sources of science and education will cluster. Here the facilities for re- 
search are even now unrivalled. The sciences, some one has said, are so- 
ciable, and flourish best in close proximity to each other, and no better 
centre could be found than Washington. The Great American University, 
if that should be its title, will undoubtedly be established in this city, where 
there are advantages which no endowment can give other cities." — Senator 
Hoar, speaking before tlie American Historical Association at its meeting in 
Washington, in December, 1888. 

To show how clearly and constantly the Columbian University 
has been working on the lines projected in the foregoing paper, I 
beg leave to submit the following extract from my Inaugural Ad- 
dress, delivered as President of the University (then known as the 
Columbian College) on the 6th of November, 1871 : 



31 

" No perfect discovery can be made," says Bacon, " on a flat or a level; neither 
is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if 
you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher 
science." And so, as he adds in another part of his treatise on the "Advance- 
ment of Learning," " if any man think philosophy and universality to be idle 
studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence served and 
supplied." And this he took to be the great cause that had hindered the 
progression of learning, " because the fundamental knowledges have been 
studied but in passage." 

And it is in immediate connection with this view of his that he deplored 
the segregation which resulted from the dedicating of foundations and dota- 
tions to single branches of " professory learning." The foundations of uni- 
versity education should be as broad as the realm of knowledge in the sciences 
and in the arts of civilized life. In laying these foundations, we must under- 
stand our epoch ; and in building on them, we must look to the mark of our 
high calling. 

And what advantages are ours, both for gaining and diffusing the blessings 
of highest culture ! For here, at our very doors, we have the Smithsonian 
Institution, perpetually working, under the guidance of its illustrious Secre- 
tary [Joseph Henry], on the boundaries of knowledge in all departments, thus 
literally fulfilling the will of its founder and exemplifying the highest func- 
tion of a university, 'by increasing and diffusing knowledge among men. And 
here is the National Library of Congress, with its well-filled alcoves, open 
alike to teachers and scholars for purposes of literary or scientific research ; 
and here, for the study of Technology, are the accumulated fruits of Ameri- 
can inventive genius stored in the Patent Office ; and here, for the progres- 
sive scientific study of Astronomy, is the National Observatory ; and here is 
that no less learned than useful school of practical geometers connected with 
the Coast Survey ; and here are the gardens which, under the keeping of the 
Agricultural Department, invite to the study of Botany, not in dry herbaria 
and in dryer tomes, but amid flowery walks through which Shenstone would 
have loved to ramble by the side of Linnaeus or Hasselquist. And here, for 
the student of law, are tbe highest seats of our American Themis, as here, 
for the votaries of the healing art, are the priceless treasures of the Medical 
Museum, without any rival in the world among institutions of its kind ; and 
here, by the munificence of him who stands at the head of the governing 
Board of our College, is the Corcoran Gallery of the Fine Arts, to keep alive 
the love of beauty in the soul of man. 

God grant that the day may not be far distant when our College, already a 
University in embryo, may be able, by the munificence of its endowments, 
and therefore by the range of its studies, to take advantage of all these singu- 
lar opportunities for promoting true culture in all its departments. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 892 138 8 



